Prologue to the Secunda Secundae: the seven virtues, the eleven emotions and the order of faith, hope and charity (Dei Verbum), with an overview of Question 1 on the object of faith

Orientation #

He does not refer to a previous class. He says he will not go through all ten articles of q. 1 and closes with “let’s look now at the first article,” which is left for next time. The next class works through the opening articles of q. 1 on whether the object of faith is the first truth and whether it is simple or propositional.

The class, in order #

1. Why the Secunda Secundae descends to particulars (“universal speeches are less useful”) #

Point: Thomas’s prologue justifies the “thickest part of the Summa” by Aristotle’s reason that doings are about singulars.

1. After the common treatment of virtues and vices (Prima Secundae) each must be considered “in special.”
2. Reason (Thomas, following Aristotle in the Ethics, cited in the Marietti edition): universal speeches about things to be done are “more empty,” particulars “more true,” because actions are in particulars.

• Geometry vs. morals: the square on the hypotenuse holds of every right triangle, interior angles equal two right angles for every triangle; but doing something is dealing with the particular.
• It is not enough to say universally what virtue is; one must adapt it to singular things.

2. Two ways of considering morals “in special” (“on the part of the very matter”) #

Point: special consideration is either (A) by the matter — this virtue, this vice — or (B) by the special states of men: subject vs. commanding, active vs. contemplative, and other differences (young and old). What pertains to every state comes first; determined states of life second.

3. Four things under one tract (“necessary to say the same thing many times”) #

Point: virtues, gifts, vices and precepts treated separately would repeat; e.g. “you shall not commit adultery” cannot be treated without the opposite virtue. So under each virtue: the gift of the Holy Spirit perfecting it (if any), the opposite vices, the affirmative or negative precepts.

• Gifts of the Holy Spirit compared by Thomas to Aristotle’s heroic virtues: a hero is half man, half god (one parent divine), so the gifts are “above the human mode.”
• Virtues and vices together, as in Aristotle’s Ethics: “the same knowledge of opposites” (Plato and Aristotle).
• Vices are distinguished by species according to their matter or object, not by the differences of heart, mouth and deed, nor infirmity, ignorance, malice. The same matter is where virtue works rightly and vice recedes from rectitude.

4. Seven virtues and the four powers behind the cardinals (“why are there four cardinal virtues”) #

Point: all morals reduce to seven virtues, three theological and four cardinal; the four “hinge” virtues (cardinal = hinge) answer to four powers concerned with what we do.

• The four powers: reason (“used very rarely”), will, and two sense appetites — Greek thumos and epithumia, Latin irascible (named from the most manifest emotion, anger) and concupiscible.
• Concupiscible vs. irascible: the concupiscible arises simply from an object agreeable or disagreeable to the senses; the irascible arises when getting the good or avoiding the evil is difficult and one must “be tough and make an effort.”
• Concupiscible, six: about the good, liking, wanting, joy; about the bad, dislike/hatred, aversion, sadness/pain. Salmon (disliked, avoided, sadness when a hostess serves it) vs. steak and French fries (the Quebec waitress had it ready before he sat down).
• Irascible, five: hope vs. despair toward a difficult good (the girl many suitors want; a strong football team — you make the effort, or get discouraged and give up); the sour grapes: desire, difficulty, despair, then “they’re probably sour anyway” (and “she’s probably spoiled”); fear vs. boldness toward a hard-to-avoid evil (if you can order something else there is no irascible emotion); anger when the evil is present and you think you can do something about it (someone standing on your toe and saying “so what?”). If you cannot, only sadness.
• Total: eleven emotions; one could go further by particular objects, but eleven kinds.
• Prudence in reason, justice in will, courage in the irascible, temperance in the concupiscible: one hinge in each.
• Hope as an irascible emotion is only similar to the theological virtue hope, which is in the will.
• Aside: minor key for sadness, anger, fear (Mozart’s D minor and C minor concertos, Don Giovanni), major for joy and hope; Mozart changes key for a reason where Haydn changes for variety; G major and B-flat “more concupiscible,” D and C major “more irascible.”

5. Where the theological virtues sit, and in what order (“faith, hope, and charity have God as object”) #

Point: because God is not sensible, virtues with God as object are in reason and will only, not in the sense appetites (infused virtues perfect those); he notes as striking that one theological virtue (faith) is in reason and two in the will — why? Left open.

• The order faith, hope, charity is not the order of excellence: St Paul says charity is the greatest. Which is next, faith or hope? He and Warren Murray once put this to Msgr Dion; “look at the disputed questions on hope” — left open.
• Thomas’s simple distinction: by faith we know the end (eternal life), by hope we start moving toward it, by love we are already joined to it — which is why charity remains after we see God. Knowing the goal is good, heading toward it better, being there best.
• Aristotle in the Ethics (Nicomachean, Eudemian, Magna Moralia) treats the end, happiness, before the virtues, since virtues are for the sake of the end; we too should treat the end first.

6. Dei Verbum’s proemium as a model (“hearing religiously the word of God”) #

Point: the proemium of the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation states the end first, then the order of generation of the three virtues.

• Two dogmatic constitutions of Vatican II: Dei Verbum on revelation and the one on the Church, completing Vatican I; dogmatic constitutions are the most authoritative. Proemium = Greek for “paving the way.”
• It “plagiarizes” two people. First 1 John 1:2-3: “we announce to you eternal life, which was with the Father and appeared to us… that you might have society with us, and our society be with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” So the end, eternal life, comes before any virtue.
• Then, adhering to the vestiges of Trent and Vatican I, the council intends to propose genuine doctrine on revelation and its transmission, so that the whole world (Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus) audiendo credat, credendo speret, sperando amet: by hearing believe, by believing hope, by hoping love. “Faith is from hearing”; I must believe God has called me before I hope, and only with hope can I love God freely. This is “almost the first sense of order, the order of generation”: one movement begets another. Order of excellence is the reverse: charity, hope, faith.
• His little prayer for people in trouble: “May God the Father strengthen you, God the Son enlighten you, God the Holy Spirit fill your heart with his love” — love appropriated to the Spirit, enlightening to the Son (“the light enlightening every man”), strengthening to the Father. Catechesis paired faith with the creed, hope with the Our Father (prayer), love with the two commandments and the Ten. But the Father-Son-Spirit order does not follow faith-hope-charity, “so all that nothing.”
• Asides: mega biblion, mega kakon — the council volume is heavy; today is the feast of St Matthew, the tax collector’s “come follow me,” and his house rule of root beer floats on apostles’ feasts; we know little of where the apostles went (Thomas to India, Peter to Rome).

7. Order of treating the cardinal virtues; intellectual virtues (“Aristotle takes up courage and temperance first”) #

Point: Thomas treats theological virtues first, then prudence, justice, courage, temperance; Aristotle takes courage and temperance first, then justice, then prudence — why the different orders?

• Student: Aristotle’s order is what is more known to us. He agrees: virtue is first known from outside as an honorable habit; the Medal of Honor is given for courage on one glorious afternoon, never for a life of moderate eating or paying one’s debts.
• Student: Thomas takes the theological virtues first because they affect conduct in the other four.
• His further reason: in theology, everything is ordered to God, so emphasize what God has properly — prudence over the whole universe, justice — whereas God has no irascible or concupiscible appetite and is courageous or temperate only metaphorically. And faith, hope, charity come first because by them we are ordered to union with God.
• Prologue continued: of the intellectual virtues prudence is counted among the cardinals; art, though a virtue of reason, does not pertain to morals because art is about making (a product), morals about doing; wisdom, understanding and science agree in name with gifts of the Holy Spirit and are treated with them; other moral virtues reduce to the cardinals, so nothing of morals is omitted.
• “He says a lot in a few words” — “gravity is a soul wit” [ed.: usually “brevity is the soul of wit”].
• Asides: Charles De Koninck, teaching the Physics since the 1930s, still saw something new each time; at Vatican II Msgr Dion pointed out something he had missed; Roman Kasuric, wisest man at the College of St Thomas, said “compared to Aristotle I’ve got the brains of an angora” — humility before Thomas and Aristotle. Empedocles: what is worth saying can be said more than once.

8. Proemium to question 1: object, act, habit (“we know the powers by their acts”) #

Point: faith is treated in four ways (itself, the gifts of understanding and science, opposite vices, precepts), and faith itself by its object, act and habit — an order learned from Aristotle’s De Anima.

• Translation: he prefers “belief” to “faith” because faith can mean trust (“a faithful servant”), which is closer to hope; French foi. “Charity” suggests giving money; “love” covers everything from candy up; Greek has more names for love.
• Powers known by acts, acts by objects: seeing and hearing differ as acts; the acts differ by their objects, color and light vs. sound; taste likewise. Either the power acts on the object (digestion) or the object acts on the power (senses: color on the eye, sound on the ear — “these kids are going deaf”).
• Aside: a bishop on EWTN on bad translations, “Christ and his band” — makes you think of a musical band.

9. The ten articles on the object of faith (“whether the object of faith is the first truth”) #

Point: a walk through the ten questions with what each is about.

1. First truth: if faith is in reason its object is truth, but the first truth; “I am the way, the truth, and the life” — Greek hodos, “road” (cf. Aramaic orho); Aristotle calls philosophy methodos, knowledge that follows a road, as Thomas and Euclid prove in order.
2. Complex or incomplex: truth is not found in the soil, the ocean or the sky but in the mind, and exactly in statements — “odd number” is neither true nor false, “no odd number is even” is true, “some odd number is even” false. But when God says “I am truth itself,” is he a statement? “That’s a real problem.” Enunciabile = statement (old Latin enunciatio).
3. Whether something false can be in faith.
4. Whether the object can be something seen — a student: no, “the evidence of things unseen,” the definition to be met under the habit.
5. Whether it can be something known: some things are seen at once (no odd number is even, no square is a circle, a square is a quadrilateral), others must be proved.
6. Whether believable things should be distinguished into articles; “Thomas gets very precise.”
7. Whether the same articles hold in all time — De Koninck to Pius XII before the Assumption: Peter is not in heaven, only his soul, since Peter is body and soul; if Mary’s body were not assumed, Mary would not be in heaven. Mysteries seem to be added to or made explicit.
8. The number of the articles.
9. The way of treating them in the symbolum — Greek “thrown together,” but thrown together in order, like cooking; now called the creed.
10. To whom it belongs to constitute the symbol of faith. He stops: “let’s look now at the first article.”

His words #

• “in special” — in particular, as opposed to the common consideration of the Prima Secundae
• “more empty” / “more true” — Aristotle on universal vs. particular speeches about doings
• “heroic virtues” — Aristotle’s term Thomas compares to the gifts; above the human mode
• “the same knowledge of opposites” — Plato and Aristotle, why virtues and vices go together
• “cardinal” — hinge
• “abilities” [ed.: powers/potencies] — reason, will, irascible, concupiscible
• thumos / epithumia — Greek for irascible and concupiscible appetite
• “emotions” [ed.: passions] — eleven kinds
• “order of generation” — the sense of order in which faith, hope, charity stand; “order of excellence” is the reverse
• proemium — paving the way
• audiendo credat, credendo speret, sperando amet — Augustine as quoted in Dei Verbum
• “belief” — his preferred rendering of fides, since “faith” can mean trust
• “gravity is a soul wit” [ed.: brevity is the soul of wit]
• hodos — road; methodos — knowledge over a road
• enunciabile — statement, the “complex” object
• symbolum — thrown together; the creed

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, prologue (translated paragraph by paragraph)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 1, prologue and the titles of the ten articles
• Vatican II, Dei Verbum, proemium (Latin, translated), quoting 1 John 1:2-3 and Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Ethics (Nicomachean, Eudemian, Magna Moralia): universals empty in practical matters; happiness before virtues; order of the virtues
• Thomas’s commentary on the Ethics (via the Marietti edition)
• Aristotle, De Anima (inferred): powers known by acts, acts by objects
• Thomas, disputed questions on hope
• St Paul: charity the greatest
• John: “I am the way, the truth, and the life”
• Hebrews: “the evidence of things unseen” (inferred, quoted by a student)
• Shakespeare, prologue to Romeo and Juliet; Euclid

His questions #

• Why is the special consideration of morals necessary after the common one? Because doings are about singulars; universals are less useful, “more empty.”
• Why are there four cardinal virtues? Because there are four powers concerned with what we do: reason, will, irascible, concupiscible, one hinge virtue in each.
• What is the difference between the concupiscible and irascible emotions? Concupiscible arise from the agreeable or disagreeable to the senses; irascible from difficulty in getting the good or avoiding the evil.
• How many emotions are there altogether? Eleven: six concupiscible, five irascible.
• Where are faith, hope and charity, and why one in reason and two in the will? In reason and will, because God is not sensible; the “why two in the will” is left open.
• Is faith, hope, charity the order of excellence? No — charity is greatest; it is the order of generation: hearing, believing, hoping, loving.
• What does Aristotle take up before the virtues? The end, happiness, for whose sake the virtues are.
• Why does Aristotle treat courage and temperance first and Thomas prudence first? Aristotle follows what is more known to us; theology emphasizes what God has properly and what orders us to God.
• Where do you find truth? In the mind, in statements — which makes God’s “I am truth itself” a real problem, left for article 2.